More Chromebooks from Google; Chrome OS, Web Store updates too

Google announced updates to the Chrome Web Store and Chrome OS on the second …

Google has decided to beef up the Chrome Web Store in hopes of making it more competitive against "traditional" app stores like Apple's. Google will now only take a flat five percent of sales through the Chrome Web Store—not a third "like other app stores"—and developers will be able to begin offering purchases from within their Web apps. The store will also launch in 41 new languages and will be available to the entire Chrome installed user base, which may expand even further thanks to improved CR-48s and more Chromebook offerings.

The company announced the changes on Wednesday during the second day of Google I/O, where Google revealed that Chrome now has 160 million active users—up from 70 million just one year ago.

Google kicked off the presentation by saying that JavaScript is no longer a bottleneck for browsers and that the next stage is graphics, proving this point with a WebGL version of Microsoft's fish demo at 60fps with about 2,000 fish from within Chrome. This opens the door to a plethora of new offerings in the Web Store, such as a Web version of the popular game Angry Birds, which its developer Rovio said wouldn't have been possible a year ago. Google also demoed an interactive music experience with a 3D modeling tool from within the browser—which was met with applause from the audience.

Google also discussed the future of Chrome OS, with Sundar Pichai saying that the company is choosing to focus on the notebook form factor for the time being. More than 1 million people requested Google's CR-48 notebook from last year, leading Google to update the hardware with a dual-core processor, a better trackpad (can we get a "hell yeah"?), and improved Flash support this time around.

The company also added file management features to Chrome OS so that CR-48 users can do things like play MP3s and video files locally. The file manager is also tied in with Web services, allowing users to upload photos to Picasa or open a Word document in Google Docs. "Any Web app can register themselves and handle your local files," Google's Kan Liu told the crowd. That's not all, either: Google said it has been working with Citrix and VMware to ensure that conventional software could be used through the Chrome OS browser, which we think is pretty awesome.

Google also announced that it is adding offline support for Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs for Chrome OS users, expected to be available this summer. And, the company said it is even branching out from the CR-48—Pichai said that Google is working with Samsung and Acer on Chromebook products. Samsung's offering will cost $499 and will come with 3G, an advertised 8-second boot, 8-hour battery life, and 12.1-inch display, while Acer's $349 Chromebook will have an 11.6-inch screen and 6.5-hour battery life. The two notebooks will be available to the public from Amazon and Best Buy on June 15 in the US, UK, France, Netherlands, Italy, and Spain, and Google says it will have various carrier partners available for each country.

Some explain to me the hardware/software lease thing. I do not think I follow. Its basically a "google-mini" you rent for 28 dollars a month?

If you are something like a school which has a lot of hardware replacement and software patching headaches, you can rent the laptops, get a central management console, and whenever they come out with a new model they will mail it to you. Malware problems basically go away. Having worked in university IT, that would be pretty nice indeed. Obviously you can't replace ALL your computers with Chrome, but most of our labs were used exclusively for web and Office.

You know what is absolutely thrilling with all of this? Finally a large company is actually innovating in the consumer computing space, versus what we've had for the last 15 years of 'lets just copy Apple but make it cheaper'. Google has a fundamentally different idea of what computing should be, and they are full on gunning for it. Its exciting as heck to root for Apple with their sheer elegance stripped to the beautiful core and precise quality in everything they do, and Google with their insane Comp Sci frat house lets-see-what-sticks lets-do-it-cuz-its-awesome mentality. Really exciting time to be a geek.

You know what is absolutely thrilling with all of this? Finally a large company is actually innovating in the consumer computing space, versus what we've had for the last 15 years of 'lets just copy Apple but make it cheaper'. Google has a fundamentally different idea of what computing should be, and they are full on gunning for it. Its exciting as heck to root for Apple with their sheer elegance stripped to the beautiful core and precise quality in everything they do, and Google with their insane Comp Sci frat house lets-see-what-sticks lets-do-it-cuz-its-awesome mentality. Really exciting time to be a geek.

I may have missed this in the article but is Google going to sell a CR-48? The article mentioned them updating it specs but it wasn't clear whether they were going to be selling it or if this update will just be available to the people who originally had access to the CR-48's.

It would take 25 months to equal the cost of the iPad 2, and they're not gonna send you the iPad 3 (or 4 by that point) for free. iPad doesn't have centralized IT policy management as far as I know. iPad doesn't offer any choice for what sort of hardware you want. (ie if you insist on more RAM, or a bigger screen, well too bad.) I have both a Cr-48 and an iPad. For the big target market here - centralized IT - iPad just isn't the right choice.

I asked this in the Liveblog thread, but I suspect it is not going to be answered over there now that this news post has been published:

So, we have Android for tablets and Android for smaller devices merging now, but why not Android for portable devices? What are the pros/cons for developers, Google and especially end users for using Chrome OS rather than Android?

I asked this in the Liveblog thread, but I suspect it is not going to be answered over there now that this news post has been published:

So, we have Android for tablets and Android for smaller devices merging now, but why not Android for portable devices? What are the pros/cons for developers, Google and especially end users for using Chrome OS rather than Android?

I think we'll have to wait for Ryan to answer that one, since he's actually at Google I/O and can get more details outside of the keynote. I'll try to pass it onto him that you have this question, though he's sort of on & offline today.

I'm still intrigued by Chrome OS, and I have a CR-48. It works well as just a lightweight web browsing machine. At my place of work, we are piloting these notebooks in the classroom very soon. I think a device like this is well suited for education, assuming you have the network reliability to ensure a good experience for a cloud based environment.

I'd like to see these get cheaper though. Maybe I'm being unrealistic, but I was gunning for $199, or at most $299 fora wifi only model. I'd imagine models with 3g would be more expensive, but we'll probably see subsidized units offered by cellular carriers in time.

if i were microsoft i would have spent less time worrying over Nokia and Skype and more time worrying over Google eating their consumer PC business.I cant speak for anyone else but i will insist that all the relatives who current 'expect' me to provide 24/7 pc support , switch to one of these or an ipad whichever they prefer.

I pledge as of today to never waste another hour fighting with windows xp or 7 over anything related to how my clueless relatives abuse their computers. today is FREEDOM DAY for me!

One of my coworkers received a Chromebook about 3 months back. He played with it for a few days, then it disappeared. I asked him about it about a month later, and he admitted that he hardly touched it anymore. This is the guy who has had a few Android phones, rooting each one, and has a Xoom. But Chrome couldn't hold his interest.

It would take 25 months to equal the cost of the iPad 2, and they're not gonna send you the iPad 3 (or 4 by that point) for free. iPad doesn't have centralized IT policy management as far as I know. iPad doesn't offer any choice for what sort of hardware you want. (ie if you insist on more RAM, or a bigger screen, well too bad.) I have both a Cr-48 and an iPad. For the big target market here - centralized IT - iPad just isn't the right choice.

Methinks thou knowest nothing of Apple and their dealings with educational institutions.

You know what is absolutely thrilling with all of this? Finally a large company is actually innovating in the consumer computing space, versus what we've had for the last 15 years of 'lets just copy Apple but make it cheaper'. Google has a fundamentally different idea of what computing should be, and they are full on gunning for it. Its exciting as heck to root for Apple with their sheer elegance stripped to the beautiful core and precise quality in everything they do, and Google with their insane Comp Sci frat house lets-see-what-sticks lets-do-it-cuz-its-awesome mentality. Really exciting time to be a geek.

I agree. I'm not sure how it will work out, and am not so sold on being beholden to my network connection. But this is certainly a big change, and something that is attacking the same old problems from a very different angle. I'm not sure that saying that it is malware free is logial though, especially with Flash support, but it certainly lets them architect things in a way to move towards a more secure model. On the other hand, their applications need some real interface work- they just aren't all that usable. But hopefully this will be the impetus to improve those (which will benefit everyone using them, not just ChromeOS users).

You know what is absolutely thrilling with all of this? Finally a large company is actually innovating in the consumer computing space, versus what we've had for the last 15 years of 'lets just copy Apple but make it cheaper'. Google has a fundamentally different idea of what computing should be, and they are full on gunning for it. Its exciting as heck to root for Apple with their sheer elegance stripped to the beautiful core and precise quality in everything they do, and Google with their insane Comp Sci frat house lets-see-what-sticks lets-do-it-cuz-its-awesome mentality. Really exciting time to be a geek.

Your enthusiasm may be profoundly diminished if you have the exquisite pain of network lag or server down time. Cloud computing is noting new it was called by other names before and failed. I would strongly prefer the old mainframe and terminal system to a "cloud" system unless it and every part of your network is run by the best of the best. It is bad enough to make people quit in frustration even with a near unlimited budget.

One of my coworkers received a Chromebook about 3 months back. He played with it for a few days, then it disappeared. I asked him about it about a month later, and he admitted that he hardly touched it anymore. This is the guy who has had a few Android phones, rooting each one, and has a Xoom. But Chrome couldn't hold his interest.

I have a Cr-48 as well, but I can tell you if you want to play around and experiment, you will find it useless. It's not a gadgety geek toy. It's small locked down netbook for regular people.

I really am shocked that they are continuing to develop ChromeOS. It seems to me to be a total waste of time and destined to fail.

Yeah, I utterly fail to understand the excitement it's generated. If all I want is a web browser, I'll just run a web browser. It's strictly inferior to Android.

It's not about what YOU want, it's about what the IT department wants.

edit: Whoops, sorry about double posting, I don't see a way to delete this one and merge the text.

Do any IT department really use GoogleDocs? I thought the impetus behind GoogleDocs was for companies that did not have an IT department?

I think many places COULD switch over to Google Docs pretty easily if they had a reason to. I used it exclusively for my last two years of uni without a hitch, except once or twice when I had to export to Office to meet some professor's arbitrary requirements. Of course, if it HAS to be Microsoft Office, then no, ChromeOS is not for you.

Can't imagine anything more useless than Chrome OS. I would have been very happy if Google invested in Wave and dropped that piece of shit Chrome OS. Well I guess they will eventually drop Chrome OS as well when Jobs hits them on the head with an iPad.

You know what is absolutely thrilling with all of this? Finally a large company is actually innovating in the consumer computing space, versus what we've had for the last 15 years of 'lets just copy Apple but make it cheaper'.

Cloud computing is stronger now than ever, because internet and networking has gotten more reliable than ever. This is NOT to say that it is 100% reliable or anything absurd like that, I just mean that in general, people have fewer problems and better performance. I still like having a hard disk and files and the ability to discretely handle my data, but it certainly feels like "consumers" (i.e. not computer geeks like me) are happy to move away from that, as long as it makes things easier to work with.

As was mentioned in the article, Google is working on offline support for the Google Docs applications, and I definitely think that offline support needs to be a necessity still. I don't want an online-only notebook, just as I don't want an online-only iPad. So, I actually am just as excited as jozero, I simply agree with you that devices need to retain as much functionality as possible when network connectivity isn't an option. Hell, if the Chromebook has an 8-hour battery life (the Samsung) then it would really be a pity if I couldn't do anything with it on an international flight. Sure, I can't watch Netflix (I'm neglecting internet-enabled flights from the discussion here), but I'd like to be able to play Angry Birds and write a document.

Looking at the recent Amazon S3 (did I get the name right?) outage, I think we can see a great example of why 100% dependence upon online services (or any external services, for that matter), isn't always a risk-free plan. But on the other hand, light clients like the Chromebook along with internet access means that you will be able to do more with less local hardware, which is really what seems to be the goal. It means that a company could outfit everyone with the hardware for little money, but then it also means that an extra emphasis needs to be put on the networking, to make sure it's completely solid. So, perhaps it's just a lateral movement, with the emphasis on the network rather than the client hardware. It feels much like mainframe/terminal systems, just expanded to work over the internet in general.

Sounds pretty exciting, but I wonder how the trend to cap and limit internet connections will affect adoption in consumer non-educational markets in the US. I imagine streaming media and "conventional apps" through the network can easily hit AT&T's 120GB/month limit, especially in a household with multiple such devices and if AT&T and other ISPs lower their monthly usage caps, as Charter recently did.